OCR04782 - *YES* Super Metroid & Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "You Can't Just Shoot a Hole into the Surface of Zebes"

[Emunator]

Artist Name: Treyt

What can I say except...

...whoops? 😅

I took my sweet time submitting this. Got distracted pretty bad after the event ended, worked on different projects, work was insane, [insert 100 more excuses here], so here I am finally doing my duty.

Initial idea was to make something doom themed. It kinda came across, but settles into a bit more mellow of a feeling. Until the Vylent comes in at the end anyway!

Working with everyone was really cool. I've always been a fan of Mrs. Weeks' voice, so I was happy to get a bit into this track. PixelSeph has way more guitar experience than I do, and it shines through brightly in his performance. During the final chorus, I morphed his guitar performance with a huge reese for the backing instrumentation and found a new favorite technique. Definitely going to be morphing guitars with things going forward. I was particularly impressed with Josh's drum sequencing, maybe because I'm a  hyperrookie when it comes to drums, but I think it's because he REALLY knows what he's doing. I may have composed the piece, but the performers brought this piece alive.

And then Vylent came in and absolutely crushed it with that ridiculously hard and ending. Dude didn't know the meaning of the word "chill," and I'm so glad he brought that energy.

But yeah, cool people, definitely made some great connections, and looking forward to working with them again. Thanks for the opportunity guys!

Collaborating Credits:
Colorado Weeks - Vocals
Varia - Vocal Samples
Vylent - EDM Composition and Synth
ParadiddleJosh - Drums
PixelSeph - Guitar

Source Breakdown:
Intro begins with vocal sample emulating the downwardd semitone slide from SM(Super Metroid), then low synths follow the melodic progression of CV(Castlevania) until 30s, where the opening instrumentation of SM is followed by low synths, accompanied by the violin shrieks of CV. This leads into SM's main melodic theme, followed by a bridge of guitar that follows CV until a break at 1'10" that features repeated use of SM's semitone slide. At 1'38" some variation on the CV theme occurs on guitar and synth, leading into the end of the CV theme and some more variation on it. This all leads into the final representation of SM's theme at 2'16", and lead out by more CV on guitar and synth, which drops into EDM to finish the track.

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Games & Sources

Game Set Mash Round 3, Door of Holy Spirits x Super Metroid Main Theme
Castlevania: SOTM
Door of Holy Spirits
Composed by Michiru Yamane

Super Metroid
Main Theme
Composers:  Kenji Yamamoto, Minako Hamano

[prophetik music]

that castlevania source is cursed.

opens with some fun washes of sound and vocals, and then we're in the meat right away. some really impressive sound design in that first 30s. there's a huge hit right at 1:10 that's awesome. the continued distorted morphing bass through this next section is great as well, and the drum work in here is really superb. there's an extended build through 2:03 and then it goes nuts for a while. a tiny nitpick is that there's a lot going on in the low mids - it's not overly dense, but it's hard to grasp everything that's going on down there.

there's a big hit at 2:17 where we finally get, over two minutes in, a real chord progression with sustains and everything. such a payoff! 2:45 is a shift in styles and is a huge fat edm beat that i can't get enough of. great idea to end it with a big style shift. the ending itself is a little sudden, but it works with how angular most of this is.

the mastering isn't 100% bulletproof, but there's some really interesting stuff going on in here. the use of sfx and sweeps and distortion to keep everything constantly morphing and shifting is so technically impressive. excellent work.

 

 

YES

[Emunator]

OK, so I've been holding off on voting on GSM tracks because of my involvement in the competition, but since we're limited on judge bandwidth and this is still sitting here with one vote on it, I'll jump in and give my two cents.

Yeah, this source is cursed for SURE. Fair enough though, we hit you with Environmental Mystery in Round 2 and that's just as unwieldy in a different way. The source usage checks out even if it's obviously not the catchiest material from the Castlevania side, and the triumphant Super Metroid melody makes for an insanely rewarding payoff.

On the production side, this goes all-in, and you're quickly proving why you're one of the most promising up-and-coming electronic artists in the community. You really don't hold back on your processing, and it's abundantly clear that you put a lot of love into every little detail, fill, filter sweep, and transition so that you're never just coasting on autopilot. There's an inherent challenge to mixing a track like this, but when you're doing the DOOM thing, a little bit of crunch and mud in the mixing isn't always a bad thing.

Let's ship this one off, this is clearly strong stuff by Treyt as the ringleader who also made really brilliant use of the contributions from the rest of the team, as well. Great work!

YES

[Hemophiliac]

Very impressive arrangement you've come up with. The usage of both themes and their interweaving was handled very well.

The transition into 2:58 was handled very well and I appreciate that the build to this was a slower one and not just a sudden "Oh we're here now"

Really really like the usage of Door of the Holy Spirit because that's not a typical source you'd normally hear being used for a remix. You guys did a great job of keeping it in there while not leaning too hard on the metroid side of things.

My biggest gripe here was the audible reduction during some downbeats and heavy hits.  I suspect there's some side-chaining that wasn't as transparent as it could have been. It is not constant and only happens a few times, so it doesn't shoot a hole in this one for me.  Instead, shoot a hole in your listener's brains with the unholy and awesome team effort from "Team Whip".

YES